Category: Covid-19

Worshippers came to Redding's Sundial Bridge on July 22, 2020. The crowd put the community 'at risk' for COVID-19, Shasta County health officials say. Redding Record Searchlight

At least two Shasta County supervisors are losing their patience with the leadership at Bethel Church over its messaging amid the recent COVID-19 outbreak at its School of Supernatural Ministry.

At Thursdays special board meeting, Supervisors Les Baugh and Leonard Moty said the tipping point for them came this week, when they learned Kris Vallotton, a church leader who co-founded the evangelical school, hosted a large family outdoor wedding last weekend in Shingletown.

The wedding also came up at Tuesdays regular board meeting.

Im not convinced theyre really hearing (us), said Baugh, a pastor at Anderson Community Church in Anderson.

Supervisor Moty, you mentioned the wedding (Tuesday) and I didnt know at the time the wedding actually had been a personal wedding of one of the leaders of the Bethel community, and I do say, as a community, thats wrong. That should not have happened, Baugh said on Thursday.

Supervisor Les Baugh(Photo: Mike Chapman/Record Searchlight)

Moty on Thursday said he was happy to see the School of Supernatural Ministry worked with health officials to help stop the outbreak among its students and staff.

And then, quite frankly, I was very dismayed by this event, and one of their leaders of their church, (who is) very familiar with the (COVID-19) situation, has a very large wedding event there, Moty said. From what I understand, size-wise, (it) could have maybe have been legal if they would have social distanced and wore masks ... but they did nothing of the sort.

Moty said it clearly sent the wrong message.

Supervisor Leonard Moty(Photo: Andreas Fuhrmann)

During Thursdays meeting to consider opting out of the states COVID-19 color-coded tier system, many of the public speakers blamed Bethel and the county for its failure to hold the church accountable for the surge in cases.

Purple tier in Shasta County:Nearly 200 people plead with supervisors on COVID restrictions

Supervisor Joe Chimenti pointed out the megachurch, with its 11,000 members, is hugely influential in the community and the leadership's actions matter. Combined, the church and its subsidiaries, like Bethel Music, Bethel Media and the School of Supernatural Ministry, are one of the largest employers in Shasta County.

I think theyre a large influencer in so many positive ways in the community, that this is a real opportunity for them to step up and show some leadership in terms of how they can help us as a community come together because as we know, this can become very divisive, Chimenti said.

The number of COVID-19 cases associated with theSchool of Supernatural Ministry and a Redding nursing home is on the decline, Shasta County Health Officer Dr. KarenRamstromsaid during a media briefing Wednesday.

Bethel officials have said in written statements they continue to work with public health.

As of last Tuesday, the school had reported 321 positive cases since the outbreak started in September. Bethel spokesman Aaron Tesauro said Friday public health officials confirmed less than 12 active coronavirus cases in the school.

For the actions that Bethel has made as a church and school since March, we recommend the public view our history of adjustments and statements at http://www.bethel.com/coronavirus, Tesauro said in an email.

Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry co-founder Kris Vallotton posted a video Tuesday night, Oct. 20, 2020 on Facebook in which he defended the occurrence of a large wedding in Shingletown last weekend.(Photo: Facebook)

Tesauro directed questions about the wedding to Vallotton.

Vallotton addressed his grandson'swedding in avideo he posted Tuesday on Instagram and Facebook. He did not respond to an email from the Record Searchlight seeking comment at the time.

In the video, he said about 100 people attended the wedding, down from an original guest list of 300, and the family and attendees knew the risk.

He said few people wore masks, but they knew all the guests and "we had them seated at family tables."

"I live a fully lockdown life with some exceptions and I think ... we have to measure the risk to reward," he said.

On Friday, Vallotton said in an email to the Record Searchlight that he has reached out to supervisors and will work out my relationship with them personally. He declined to comment further.

RELATED STORY:Amid surge in COVID cases at its school, Bethel hosted in-person worship conference

Meanwhile, in another Instagram video this month, church leader Beni Johnson disparaged the importance of wearing masks to help prevent spread of the virus. If you'll do the scientific research, these masks are worthless and they're people's security blankets," she said in the video.

Johnson later apologized but she also said she still questions the importance of the public health measure.

Sean Feucht sings on stage with his family, Ezra, 5, Keturah, 9, and Malachi, 7, in front of the west steps of the state Capitol as protesters gathered at Liberty Fest to protest Gov. Gavin Newsom's stay-at-home order in Sacramento, Calif., on May 23. Hundreds of protesters rallied outside the Capitol on Saturday to protest against California's stay-at-home orders even as residents entered the Memorial Day weekend with newly expanded options for going to the beach, barbecuing and shopping. (Jason Pierce/The Sacramento Bee via AP)(Photo: Jason Pierce, AP)

Christian recording artist Sean Feucht, aBethel volunteer worship leader, has held large open-air concerts in California and in other parts of the country, including the National Mall in Washington D.C., Kenosha, Wis. and Chicago and Nashville, in defiance of physical distancing and other health guidelines during the pandemic. A rally organized in July at the Sundial Bridge drew thousands.

Moty said its important for the county to keep pressuring Bethel to do the right thing and follow health guidelines.

Baugh said at the start of the outbreak at the School of Supernatural Ministry, health officials danced around it when they could have been more forthright with the public.

We cant be afraid to talk about things in a very transparent way if were going to salvage our community and be healthy as a community. We have to talk about these things, he said.

Health and Human Services Agency Director Donnell Ewert told supervisors during his last conversation with Vallotton, the BSSM director told him Bethels leadership is not of one mind.

Ewert said he asked Vallotton if the churchs leadership could come up with a united message about the importance of wearing masks and social distancing because it would help the community.

And he told me he couldnt do it because they are not of one mind, Ewert said.

Moty told Ewert he found that unsettling.

That disturbs me very much to hear that they cant control different aspects of their organization for the good of public health in Shasta County. Thats really bad, Moty said.

David Benda coversbusiness, developmentand anything else that comes up for the USA TODAY Network in Redding. He also writes the weekly "Buzz on the Street"column.Hes part of a team of dedicated reporters that investigate wrongdoing, coverbreaking news and tell other stories about your community. Reach him on Twitter @DavidBenda_RS or by phone at 1-530-225-8219. To support and sustain this work, please subscribetoday.

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Patience with Bethel Church leadership waning after inconsistent messages on COVID-19 - Record Searchlight

PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) Ten new COVID-19 deaths were reported on Saturday as South Dakota surpassed more than 10,000 active COVID-19 cases in the state, according to the South Dakota Department of Healths update.

The death toll increased to 366. There have been 143 deaths in October, the deadliest month of the pandemic in South Dakota. The new deaths were six women and four men with three in the 60-69 age range, two in the 70-79 age range and five in the 80+ age range. The new deaths were listed in the following counties: four in Jerauld (11), one in Lincoln (18), one in Meade (10), three in Minnehaha (105) and one in Todd (6).

On Saturday, 939 new coronavirus cases were reported, bringing the states total case count to 38,141, up from Friday (37,202).

On Tuesday, the DOH changed its website to not list new total cases on the SD overview tab of its dashboard. KELOLAND News has been counting the number of new total cases since the beginning of the pandemic and will continue to report on the new total cases. There were 852 new PCR cases and 87 new antigen cases announced for 939 new cases Saturday.

Total recovered cases are now at 27,557, up 573 from Friday (26,984).

Active cases are now at 10,218, up from Friday (9,862).

Current hospitalizations are at 356, up from Friday (349). Total hospitalizations are at 2,378, up from Friday (2,336).

Total persons tested negative is now at 205,539, up from Friday (203,800).

There were 2,678 new persons tested reported on Saturday.

Keep reading

Your Guide To Coronavirus

KELOLAND News is covering the COVID-19 pandemic. This is your guide to everything you need to know to prepare. We also have the latest stories from across the globe feeding into this page.

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COVID-19 in South Dakota: 939 total new cases; Death toll rises to 366; Active cases at 10,218 - KELOLAND.com

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led to unprecedented changes in all aspects of our lives and has placed biomedical research at the forefront. One of the many pressing questions surrounding severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections is identifying the determinants of the clinical spectrum, from people with asymptomatic disease to patients with severe COVID-19. Up to 40% of infections may be asymptomatic, suggesting that a large proportion of people may be protected from disease (1). On the other end of the spectrum is severe disease, with an overall estimated fatality rate near 1% (2). On pages 422 and 424 of this issue, Zhang et al. (3) and Bastard et al. (4), respectively, report analyses of >1600 patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 from >15 countries to identify endogenous factors that determine susceptibility to severe COVID-19.

Many studies have focused on characterizing the heterogeneity of COVID-19 in terms of demographics, with clear evidence of higher mortality in men and older individuals. The adaptive immune system, including both B and T cells, has recently been recognized to play a critical role in providing preexisting immunity to SARS-CoV-2 (57). These studies have highlighted mechanisms that protect against severe symptoms but have not revealed factors that predispose to mortality. Consequently, acquired immune responses to prior infections may account for a large percentage of the variability in disease presentation, although questions remain about additional determinants of disease, such as preexisting comorbidities. Host genetic risk factors have also emerged as a potential explanation for clinical heterogeneity and additionally offer the potential for understanding molecular pathways for tailored therapeutic intervention.

Small-scale studies have implicated the type I interferon (IFN) pathway as protective against SARS-CoV-2 (8, 9). The type I IFN pathway plays a crucial role in mediating innate immune responses to viral infections. This family of cytokines is comprised of 13 IFN- subtypes, IFN-, IFN-, IFN-, and IFN-, which all signal through the heterodimeric IFN I receptor, composed of IFN-/ receptor 1 (IFNAR1) and IFNAR2 (see the figure). In host cells, type I IFNs are expressed at low amounts, poised to combat infections. Upon infection, they are rapidly produced by immune cells, such as macrophages and dendritic cells, to limit the spread of pathogens. In addition, type I IFNs induce the expression of several hundred interferon stimulated genes that can further limit pathogen replication through various mechanisms. However, this typically protective immune response can, when overactivated, lead to autoimmune diseases. Conversely, loss-of-function variants in genes encoding members of the type I IFN pathway lead to severe immunodeficiencies characterized by life-threatening viral infections. Recently, multiple studies demonstrated that impaired type 1 IFN responses may be a hallmark of severe COVID-19 (1012), but why this pathway was suppressed remained unclear.

Zhang et al. report a large genetic sequencing effort to define host risk factors to SARS-CoV-2 infection, analyzing exome or genome sequences from 659 patients with severe COVID-19 for rare pathogenic variants that could be associated with life-threatening disease. The authors focused on the type I IFN pathway and analyzed 13 candidate genes that have previously been linked with susceptibility to other viral infections. Deleterious variants that can impair gene function were identified in 3.5% (23/659) of cases. Defects in type I IFN gene expression and protein levels were recapitulated in patient cells harboring these variants, demonstrating recurrent diminished activity of this pathway in severe disease. SARS-CoV-2 viral loads were higher in patients' immune cells than in cells from healthy donors (who were infection-negative and seronegative for SARS-CoV-2), demonstrating an inability to properly clear the virus. Together, these data implicate the importance of type I IFN signaling in defense against SARS-CoV-2 infection and suggest that inherited deleterious variants explain a subset of severe COVID-19.

Bastard et al. identified neutralizing autoantibodies as another potential cause of severe COVID-19. Autoantibodies recognize and thereby may inhibit host proteins; they are a hallmark of many autoimmune diseases and are thought to be a contributor to autoimmune pathophysiology. Neutralizing autoantibodies against type I IFNs, mostly IFN-2 and IFN-, were found in up to 13.7% (135/987) of patients with life-threatening COVID-19 and were shown to neutralize activation of the pathway in vitro. By contrast, these autoantibodies were not present in 663 patients with asymptomatic or mild COVID-19 and were only found in 0.33% (4/1227) healthy individuals not exposed to SARS-CoV-2. The presence of neutralizing autoantibodies correlated with low serum IFN- concentrations. Autoantibodies against type I IFNs were also detected in blood samples of some patients obtained before SARS-CoV-2 infection, indicating that their production was not triggered by the virus in those patients. Notably, inactivating autoantibodies were identified primarily in males (94%) and may be a cause of the higher male-specific disease mortalities.

Viral particles are sensed by various PRRs, including cytosolic sensors. Type I IFNs are potent antiviral cytokines produced by innate immune cells. They bind a specific cell-surface receptor and signal through the JAK-STAT pathway to induce expression of ISGs that encode other antiviral proteins and various transcription factors. Subsets of patients with severe COVID-19 have loss-of-function genetic variants in several members of the type 1 IFN pathway (red) or neutralizing autoantibodies against type I IFNs, specifically IFN-2 and IFN-.

By analyzing patients with severe COVID-19, these two studies provide evidence that type I IFNs are protective against COVID-19 and that limiting this response through either gene mutations or autoantibodies leads to severe disease. Autoantibodies against other proinflammatory cytokinesincluding type II IFN (IFN-), interleukin-6 (IL-6), IL-17A, and IL-17Fhave been reported in healthy individuals, patients with autoimmune diseases, and other opportunistic infections, although the function of these autoantibodies is not always understood (13). Studying the mechanisms of acquired immunodeficiency, perhaps related to sex and aging, could help reduce infectious disease morbidity and mortality.

Type I IFN concentrations are tightly regulated, with several rare monogenic autoinflammatory and immunodeficiency disorders caused by either too much or too little interferon production, respectively. Healthy people may have impaired type I IFN responses owing to inherited loss-of-function variants in genes encoding components of the type I IFN signaling cascade but remain clinically silent until they encounter particular viruses or other microbes (8). This may be the case in severe COVID-19 patients who have no prior history of clinical immunodeficiency.

Collectively, this work has important therapeutic implications. Inhaled IFN- and systemic antiviral therapies are being studied for COVID-19 in clinical trials (14). The studies of Zhang et al. and Bastard et al. offer a potential avenue for identifying people who are at risk of developing life-threatening SARS-CoV-2 infection, primarily older men, by a presymptomatic screening of their blood samples for type I IFN autoantibodies. Identification of such patients may also be important to avoid potential therapeutic use of their convalescent plasma (which will contain the cytokine-neutralizing autoantibodies) in ongoing clinical trials. Furthermore, recombinant IFN- treatment may not benefit patients with neutralizing autoantibodies, whereas it may work well for patients who carry loss-of-function variants in type I IFN genes, other than IFNAR1 or IFNAR2. In patients with autoantibodies, treatment with IFN- may be beneficial because neutralizing autoantibodies against this cytokine appear to be less common (4, 14). Findings from these studies have paved the way for precision medicine and personalized treatment strategies for COVID-19.

What remains unknown are the contributions of genetic variation outside of the type I IFN pathway for defense against SARS-CoV-2 infection. Additionally, although Zhang et al. focused on rare germline variation, the roles of common single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and acquired somatic mutations in immune cells, which accumulate with age, need to be investigated. Further comprehensive genetic studies could also help provide insights into the potential contribution of deleterious variation in the severe SARS-CoV-2associated multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (15). Although the studies of Zhang et al. and Bastard et al. illuminate the importance of pathways responsible for clearing infections, it is also possible that proinflammatory variants may either reduce or enhance disease severity. Why some patients who carry pathogenic variants in innate immune genes, such as IFN-related genes, remain asymptomatic until their exposure to a specific pathogen is likely explained by the presence of other genetic modifying alleles or epigenetic factors. Unbiased genomic studies can answer some of these questions; however, they need to be expanded to larger and more diverse populations (beyond mostly European descent) to meaningfully address the susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 and other potentially pandemic viral infections. Ultimately, through collaborative efforts, biomedical research should and will help combat spread of the virus by identifying people at risk with rapid diagnostic tests and facilitating new targeted therapies.

Acknowledgments: We thank D. Kastner and E. Beck for helpful discussions.

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Susceptibility to severe COVID-19 - Science Magazine

In findings that could place another group onto the COVID at-risk list, researchers in the United Kingdom estimated in a research letter published yesterday that adults with Down syndrome are at almost five times the risk for COVID-19related hospitalization and 10 times the risk for related death.

The study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine and led by researchers from the University of Oxford, involved 8.26 million adults, 4,053 of them diagnosed as having Down syndrome. The team analyzed information from a primary care database to determine if the abnormal immune responses, congenital heart disease, and lung abnormalities common in people who have the syndrome could be risk factors for severe COVID-19 illness.

From Jan 24 to Jun 30, 68 of 4,053 patients with Down syndrome died, 27 (39.7%) of them from coronavirus, 17 (25.0%) from pneumonia or pneumonitis (inflammation of lung tissue), and 24 (35.3%) of other causes. In contrast, 41,685 of the 8,252,105 patients without Down syndrome died, 8,457 (20.3%) from COVID-19, 5,999 (14.4%) of pneumonia or pneumonitis, and 27,229 (65.3%) of other causes.

After adjusting for age and sex, the hazard ratio (HR) for coronavirus-related deaths in adults with Down syndrome, versus those without, was 24.94. And after adjusting for age, sex, ethnicity, body mass index (BMI), residency in a long-term care facility, dementia or congenital heart disease, and other underlying conditions and treatments, the HR for COVID-19associated death was 10.39, and the HR for hospitalization was 4.94.

The researchers found no sign of interactions between Down syndrome and age, sex, or BMI, and the HR for death did not change with further adjustment for smoking status and alcohol intake (HR, 10.12). The adjusted HR for people with learning disabilities other than Down syndrome was 1.27.

The authors noted that Down syndrome is not on the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention list or a similar one maintained in the United Kingdom of conditions that increase the risk of severe coronavirus disease.

The authors said that public health organizations, policymakers, and healthcare professionals should use the study findings to strategically protect people who are especially vulnerable to COVID-19 because of Down syndrome or other conditions.

"These estimated adjusted associations do not have a direct causal interpretation because some adjusted variables may lie on causal pathways, but they can inform policy and motivate further investigation," they wrote. "Participation in day care programs or immunologic deficits could be implicated, for example."

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Down syndrome tied to 10 times the risk of COVID-19 death - CIDRAP

There's increasing emphasis on wearing masks while flying. How much protection do they offer against COVID-19? James D. Morgan/Getty Images hide caption

There's increasing emphasis on wearing masks while flying. How much protection do they offer against COVID-19?

Early in the coronavirus pandemic, air travel looked like a risky endeavor. Some scientists even worried that airplanes could be sites of superspreading events. For example, in March a Vietnamese businesswoman with a sore throat and a cough boarded a flight in London. Ten hours later, she landed in Hanoi, Vietnam; she infected 15 people on the flight, including more than half of the passengers sitting with her in business class.

Then in April, airlines shifted course. Many started requiring passengers to wear masks on planes and some airlines even enforced the policy. Just on Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it now "strongly recommends" all passengers and crew members wear masks.

So the big question is this: How well do the masks work? Do they make it safe to fly across the country for a family visit?

Scientists are just beginning to answer that question. And their findings offer a glimmer of hope as well as fresh ideas about what's most important for protecting yourself on a plane.

The new evidence comes largely from Hong Kong, where health officials have been meticulously testing and tracking all passengers who land in the city. "They test everybody by PCR on arrival, quarantine them in single rooms for 14 days and then test the passengers again," says infectious disease doctor David O. Freedman at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. So health officials there know which passengers boarded the plane while already infected with the virus and whether they could have infected anyone else on the plane.

Freedman and his colleague have been analyzing these data, with a specific focus on one airline: Emirates.

"Since April, Emirates has had a very rigid masking policy," Freedman says. Not only does the airline require passengers and crew members to wear masks, but flight attendants also make sure everyone keeps on their masks, as much as possible, throughout the entire flight.

Freedman looked at all Emirates flights from Dubai to Hong Kong between June 16 and July 5. What he found is quite telling. During those three weeks, Emirates had five flights with seven or more infected passengers on each flight, for a total of 58 coronavirus-positive passengers flying on eight-hour trips. And yet, nobody else on the planes none of the other 1,500 to 2,000 passengers picked up the virus, Freedman and his colleague report in the Journal of Travel Medicine.

"Those were flights with higher risk, and yet there was no transmission," Freedman says.

On another Emirates flight, a whopping 27 coronavirus-positive people boarded the plane in Dubai. Guess how many other passengers were infected on the eight-hour flight?

"There appear to have been two in-flight transmissions," Freedman says.

Without the masks, he would have expected many more cases. Freedman and his colleague found several other high-risk flights with no transmission, including an executive jet that flew from Tokyo to Tel Aviv, Israel, with two of the 11 passengers infected with the coronavirus.

"They were all sitting in a very small environment because it was an executive jet," Freedman says. "And yet again, there was no transmission because passengers were meticulously masked. The crew supervised the masking."

In fact, since airlines have started to require masks, Freedman says, scientists have not documented one superspreading event on airlines. "Flights that had significant transmission documented were flights early on in the pandemic."

All together, these data suggest masks are working and working well. "There's encouraging evidence from a number of flights that masking does help greatly, but it would be nice to study it better," he says. "The circumstantial evidence is, your risk is low on a plane, if there is rigid masking."

And that last part is key. To keep the risk low on planes, everyone needs to keep their mask on while riding the plane.

Why? Planes have excellent air ventilation and filtration systems, which remove coronavirus particles from the air about every six minutes, the U.S. Transportation Command reported Thursday.

"So the only opportunity to breathe the virus in comes from the air that passes by you before it goes through that ventilation system," says engineer Linsey Marr at Virginia Tech. "And so that's only going to happen if you're sitting close to the person who's sick."

In other words, because of a plane's filtration systems, your risk of catching the coronavirus on a flight comes almost entirely from the people sitting around you. And that risk is lower when those fellow passengers wear masks.

The mask will block some of the virus particles a person releases into the air around them. It will also reduce how much virus you breathe in. And it will prevent big drops of spit and saliva from hitting your nose and mouth, Marr says.

For these reasons, Marr says, when she flies, she carefully chooses which mask to wear.

"I save my best mask for the plane. It has a couple layers of HEPA filters that remove more than 99% of particles," she says. "It's not my everyday mask. I can't just hang it around my neck. It's more troublesome than that."

You can't really buy N95 masks right now, but if you happen to have one, Marr recommends using it or even a P100 respirator, which includes a plastic facepiece and particulate filters or cartridges that remove 99.97% of virus particles. "On the plane, you want the best there is," she reiterates. "But just make sure it fits well, and keep in mind, the mask doesn't protect your eyes. So you might want to consider wearing a face shield or goggles or some other kind of eye protection."

Also remember to disinfect surfaces around your seat, such as the armrests, tray tables and seat backs. You can use hand sanitizer or bleach wipes, and try to do it regularly throughout the flight. Avoid touching your face as much as possible, Marr says. And keep chatter to a minimum. When you talk, you can emit 10 times the droplets and aerosols that you do when you're quiet.

Finally, Freedman says, don't forget to wear a mask and socially distance throughout the travel process while traveling to and from the airport, while waiting in the airport and while boarding and exiting the plane.

"To me, one of the scariest parts [of flying] is the disembarkation process," Freedman says. "Airlines can control people getting onto a plane, but getting off can be chaos because everybody rushes off the plane."

For this reason, Freedman says, he and his wife aren't flying this year for Thanksgiving. They're taking Amtrak instead.

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Do Masks On Plane Flights Really Cut Your Risk Of Catching COVID-19? - NPR

Maine reported 42 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, while an outbreak linked to a Waldo County church continued to grow.

Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said at an afternoon news briefing that the outbreak related to Brooks Pentecostal Church has increased from 46 cases to 49.

Also on Thursday, the Maine Department of Health and Human Services launched the $5 million StrengthenME campaign, which provides resources to Mainers who are feeling stress or anxiety from the pandemic.

The campaign will be a collaboration between state government and a coalition of community organizations to offer free stress management, wellness and resiliency resources, DHHS said in a news release.

The state has also set up a hotline for people to call if they need support. The number, (207) 221-8198, is in operation seven days a week, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

The stress of the global pandemic at the local level on individuals, families and communities is real, said Jeanne Lambrew, Maines health and human services commissioner, who participated in Thursdays briefing.

Among the new cases reported, nine were in York County, six in Waldo County, five in Cumberland County and five in Kennebec County.

After subtracting previously reported cases that were listed as probable but turned out to be negative after testing, the net number of new cases in Maine was 37.

The outbreak stemming from services at Brooks Pentecostal Church grew from 17 cases over the weekend to 49 on Thursday. Fellowship gatherings that involved Brooks Pentecostal and other churches from Oct. 2-4 ignored the Mills administrations executive orders designed to protect public health during a pandemic, which included limiting indoor crowds to less than 50, wearing masks in indoor public places and social distancing by keeping 6 feet apart.

About 100 to 150 attended the events in early October, including parishioners from the Quaker Hill Christian Church in Unity and the Charleston Church and Faith Bible College in Charleston.

In addition, Brooks Pentecostal in early October held its own church services attended by 70 to 100 people, and public health rules were also ignored during those services, according to the Maine CDC.

While the agency is still tracking the outbreak and cases are expected to grow, it has yet to generate as many cases as a wedding and reception in the Millinocket area in August, which has been linked to more than 175 cases and eight deaths across the state. The geographic footprint of the outbreak in Waldo County is more confined, so far.

Within roughly the same time frame as the Waldo County outbreak about two-and-a-half weeks after the initial cases the Millinocket-area outbreak had grown to 60 cases and had been linked to further outbreaks in two other locations, the York County Jail and a Madison nursing home.

Cases connected to the church outbreak have been found at nearby public schools and at Bayview Manor, an assisted living center in Searsport. Bayview Manor completed a round of universal testing of all its staff and residents and found no additional cases, according to the Maine CDC.

When asked to compare what the Maine CDC has learned about controlling outbreaks in October compared to August, Shah said its hard to pinpoint any major breakthroughs. But he said state contact tracers and disease investigators are constantly learning new and better ways to respond, that taken together in the aggregate the refinements they make improve the response.

Since the pandemic began, 6,064 people in Maine have been infected with COVID-19, and 146 have died. There were no additional deaths reported on Thursday.

The seven-day average of daily new cases stood at 37, compared to 31 two weeks ago and 30.3 a month ago. Also on Thursday, the Maine Department of Corrections reported one employee at the Maine Correctional Center in Windham had tested positive for COVID-19. Earlier in the week, the corrections department recorded a case involving a staff member at the Maine State Prison in Warren.

Hospitalizations remained low, with seven currently hospitalized, and no one in intensive care.

The seven-day positivity rate which reflects the percentage of tests returned positive on Thursday was 0.53. The rate has hovered between 0.5 and 0.6 percent over the past month.

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Maine reports 42 new cases of COVID-19 as outbreak linked to church grows - Press Herald

The drug industry has been gradually migrating to the cloud for years. But the Covid-19 pandemic has rapidly accelerated that shift for a simple reason: Researchers needed to run the biggest experiment of their lives in record time, and they lacked the power to launch it.

In recent months, pharma companies have struck deals with tech giants like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, which sell cloud services that could provide the computing power urgently needed to search vast libraries of molecules for a potential cure. Drug companies say transitioning to the cloud has cut down the time needed for certain research efforts from months to mere days precious time as the global health crisis rages on.

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Covid-19 is pushing pharma companies to the cloud - STAT

Even at a place like Harvard, it is feeling what feels like pain, said Rick Staisloff, a senior partner and founder of RPK Group, an Annapolis-based financial consulting company that works with colleges and universities. The pandemic is likely to hit less wealthy institutions even harder.

Most colleges have money squirreled away in reserves and got federal aid to help weather the early months of the pandemic, but this current fiscal year will be difficult and the next one even harder, Staisloff said.

Higher education held its breath going into the fall semester and was hoping beyond reasonable hope that it wouldnt be bad," he said. "Theyre waking up to the fact that spring isnt going to look better. Theyre starting that next budget cycle and going uh, oh.

Harvard blamed most of last fiscal years deficit on lost revenue after the university refunded room and board charges when it sent students home in March, closed research labs, canceled executive education programs, and shut down most events and reunions due to the pandemic. It also absorbed the cost of the early retirement program.

A $10 million deficit in Harvards $5.4 billion operating budget may seem small, but it represents a sharp reversal for a university and comes primarily from a decline in revenue. Harvard in recent years has reported 3 percent to 4 percent in revenue growth, and the last time the university reported a decline was during the 2008-2009 economic crisis.

The financial effects on Harvard from the onset of the pandemic in March of this year were significant and sudden, Thomas J. Hollister, Harvards vice president for finance, cowrote in a message Thursday that accompanied the universitys annual financial report. Sound financial management allowed the university to be in a position to cover sudden losses from operations, while also investing in the mission.

The value of Harvards endowment increased to $42 billion and offered a bright spot by providing 7.3 percent in returns and helping increase the universitys net assets by 2 percent to $50 billion.

But Harvard officials said that this current fiscal year also could end with operating deficits. The university is offering only online classes this fall and only first-year students and those facing hardships are staying in dormitories this semester, meaning that Harvard is forgoing significant room and board revenue. The university also is spending money to test students for coronavirus and reconfiguring labs to ensure social-distancing rules and safety.

How we manage declining revenue and rising need for investment in excellence amid new and necessary health protocols will, in part, determine our successors' ability to endure and thrive, Harvard President Lawrence Bacow said in a message to the university community.

Universities across the country faced significant losses last fiscal year when they had to suddenly move to remote learning to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. Many have continued to teach online and reduced the number of students in their dormitories to meet social distancing rules. Student enrollment has also dropped at many campuses, as entering first-year students opted to defer college for a year instead of paying for a mostly-online experience.

Institutions, even wealthy ones, are going to have to start looking at making cuts to faculty, staff and programs, Staisloff said.

In the past, many colleges have contained their cuts to low-wage workers, by outsourcing food services or cleaning or cutting back on contracted employees. But they will likely have to make more significant reductions that could hit faculty due to the pandemic, Staisloff said.

For the first time, youre going to see widespread impact, he said.

Some of the financial challenges to higher education predate the pandemic, as families have balked at high tuition costs and questioned whether degrees always led to better paying jobs. The number of college-age students has also been declining, Staisloff said.

Covid has turned the dial up to 11, he said. Higher educations business model is not sustainable in the long term.

Deirdre Fernandes can be reached at deirdre.fernandes@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @fernandesglobe.

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Harvard reports $10 million deficit as costs of COVID-19 add up - The Boston Globe

COVID-19 mortality rates are going down, according to studies of two large hospital systems, partly thanks to improvements in treatment. Here, clinicians care for a patient in July at an El Centro, Calif., hospital. Mario Tama/Getty Images hide caption

COVID-19 mortality rates are going down, according to studies of two large hospital systems, partly thanks to improvements in treatment. Here, clinicians care for a patient in July at an El Centro, Calif., hospital.

Two new peer-reviewed studies are showing a sharp drop in mortality among hospitalized COVID-19 patients. The drop is seen in all groups, including older patients and those with underlying conditions, suggesting that physicians are getting better at helping patients survive their illness.

"We find that the death rate has gone down substantially," says Leora Horwitz, a doctor who studies population health at New York University's Grossman School of Medicine and an author on one of the studies, which looked at thousands of patients from March to August.

The study, which was of a single health system, finds that mortality has dropped among hospitalized patients by 18 percentage points since the pandemic began. Patients in the study had a 25.6% chance of dying at the start of the pandemic; they now have a 7.6% chance.

That's a big improvement, but 7.6% is still a high risk compared with other diseases, and Horwitz and other researchers caution that COVID-19 remains dangerous.

The death rate "is still higher than many infectious diseases, including the flu," Horwitz says. And those who recover can suffer complications for months or even longer. "It still has the potential to be very harmful in terms of long-term consequences for many people."

Studying changes in death rate is tricky because although the overall U.S. death rate for COVID-19 seems to be dropping, the drop coincides with a change in whom the disease is sickening.

"The people who are getting hospitalized now tend to be much younger, tend to have fewer other diseases and tend to be less frail than people who were hospitalized in the early days of the epidemic," Horwitz says.

So have death rates dropped because of improvements in treatments? Or is it because of the change in who's getting sick?

To find out, Horwitz and her colleagues looked at more than 5,000 hospitalizations in the NYU Langone Health system between March and August. They adjusted for factors including age and other diseases, such as diabetes, to rule out the possibility that the numbers had dropped only because younger, healthier people were getting diagnosed. They found that death rates dropped for all groups, even older patients by 18 percentage points on average.

The research, an earlier version of which was shared online as a preprint in August, will appear next week in the Journal of Hospital Medicine.

"I would classify this as a silver lining to what has been quite a hard time for many people," says Bilal Mateen, a data science fellow at the Alan Turing Institute in the United Kingdom. He has conducted his own research of 21,000 hospitalized cases in England, which also found a similarly sharp drop in the death rate. The work, which will soon appear in the journal Critical Care Medicine and was released earlier in preprint, shows an unadjusted drop in death rates among hospitalized patients of around 20 percentage points since the worst days of the pandemic.

Mateen says drops are clear across ages, underlying conditions and racial groups. Although the paper does not provide adjusted mortality statistics, his rough estimates are comparable to those Horwitz and her team found in New York.

"Clearly, there's been something [that's] gone on that's improved the risk of individuals who go into these settings with COVID-19," he says.

Horwitz and others believe many things have led to the drop in the death rate. "All of the above is often the right answer in medicine, and I think that's the case here, too," she says.

Doctors around the country say that they're doing a lot of things differently in the fight against COVID-19 and that treatment is improving. "In March and April, you got put on a breathing machine, and we asked your family if they wanted to enroll you into some different trials we were participating in, and we hoped for the best," says Khalilah Gates, a critical care pulmonologist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. "Six plus months into this, we kind of have a rhythm, and so it has become an everyday standard patient for us at this point in time."

Doctors have gotten better at quickly recognizing when COVID-19 patients are at risk of experiencing blood clots or debilitating "cytokine storms," where the body's immune system turns on itself, says Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease, critical care and emergency medicine physician who works at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

He says that doctors have developed standardized treatments that have been promulgated by groups such as the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

"We know that when people are getting standardized treatment, it makes it much easier to deal with the complications that occur because you already have protocols in place," Adalja says. "And that's definitely what's happened in many hospitals around the country."

But Horwitz and Mateen say that factors outside of doctors' control are also playing a role in driving down mortality. Horwitz believes that mask-wearing may be helping by reducing the initial dose of virus a person receives, thereby lessening the overall severity of illness for many patients.

And Mateen says that his data strongly suggest that keeping hospitals below their maximum capacity also helps to increase survival rates. When cases surge and hospitals fill up, "staff are stretched, mistakes are made, it's no one's fault it's that the system isn't built to operate near 100%," he says.

For these reasons, Horwitz and Mateen believe that masking and social distancing will continue to play a big role in keeping the mortality rate down, especially as the U.S. and U.K. move into the fall and winter months.

Gates adds that the takeaway definitely should not be to cast the mask aside. There is still no cure for this disease, and even patients who recover can have long-term side effects. "A lot of my patients are still complaining of shortness of breath," she says. "Some of them have persistent changes on their CT scans and impacts on their lung functions."

And many people will continue to die, even if the rate has dropped. A recent estimate by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation suggests the total death count could reach well over 300,000 Americans by February.

"I do think this is good news," Horwitz says of her research findings, "but it does not make the coronavirus a benign illness."

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COVID-19 Death Rates Are Going Down, And Not Just Among The Young And Healthy : Shots - Health News - NPR

Geri Andre-Major passes her 2 1/2-week-old son, Maverick, to her husband, Mo Major, as their other children Max, 5, and Marley, 4, eat breakfast on March 26, 2020, in Mount Vernon, New York. Both parents lost their jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic. (John Moore/Getty Images)

The COVID-19 recession has upended the lives of American workers, millions of whom remain without a job despite a recent upswing in hiring. Working parents have faced unique challenges as many schools and child care centers around the United States closed their doors due to the coronavirus outbreak. A new Pew Research Center analysis of government data finds that in the first six months of the pandemic, the workplace engagement of mothers and fathers with children younger than 18 at home has been affected about equally.

The shares of mothers and fathers who are working employed and on the job have fallen from 2019 to 2020, but the falloff has been comparable for each group. The shares of mothers who were not in the labor force edged up more than among fathers but, among those at work, fathers appear to have reduced their work hours more than mothers.

The COVID-19 outbreak has hindered the ability of child care centers and summer camps to resume normal operations and for many schools to fully open their doors to in-person learning. Many wondered if the outbreak would further entrench or widen the already substantial gap in the shares of mothers and fathers who are at work, and research into the initial impact of the downturn suggested this may be happening. This analysis looks at the impact on the labor market activities of mothers and fathers six months into the outbreak.

The focus is on the shares of mothers and fathers who are employed and at work, not absent for any reason. The employment level of men shows a seasonal pattern, peaking in the summer months. Absences from work, including for vacations, sick leave, maternity or paternity leave, child care or family obligations, also vary seasonally. Among women, the number employed and at work is typically lower in the summer months. For these reasons, our analysis focuses on changes from 2019 to 2020, largely eliminating the effect of seasonal variations.

Most estimates in this report are from a Pew Research Center analysis of data from the Current Population Survey (CPS), a survey of U.S. households conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The COVID-19 outbreak has affected data collection efforts by the U.S. government in its surveys, limiting in-person data collection and affecting the response rate. It is possible that some measures of labor market activity are and how they vary across demographic groups are affected by these changes in data collection.

Mothers and fathers refer to women and men 16 and older who are either the reference person in the survey or their partner and who have a child younger than 18 living in the household. Grandchildren and foster children are included in the count of children. Partners include those who are married to or are cohabiting with the reference person, whether of the opposite sex or not. In September 2020, there were 32 million mothers and 27 million fathers with a child at home in a population of 201 million women and men ages 16 and older who were either reference persons or partners.

The term employed and at work refers to employed workers, full-time or part-time, who are not absent from work for any reason. Some reasons why a worker may be absent from work are vacations, maternity or paternity leave, child care and family obligations, and a labor dispute.

The labor force consists of people 16 and older who are either employed or actively looking for work. A worker who is not employed must be actively seeking work to be counted among the unemployed. The terms unemployed and not employed are used interchangeably in this report.

Earlier studies found that some mothers more so than fathers were cutting back on their work hours or taking leave from work at the beginning of the pandemic. But, over the first six months of the outbreak, the labor market impact of COVID-19 has similarly affected mothers and fathers, and the wide gulf that exists in the workplace engagement of mothers and fathers persists virtually unchanged. The share of mothers and fathers who were employed and at work plunged with the onset of the coronavirus outbreak and had recovered only partially through September 2020. The gender gap in September (22 percentage points) is slightly greater than in February (20 points), but a similar gap was also present in September 2019.

Labor market outcomes alone do not capture the full extent of the experiences of parents, such as the loss in leisure time or additional stress as they juggle work, child care and online learning. Given that mothers already assumed greater responsibility for child care than fathers, it is likely that the additional duties during COVID-19 as many schools, day care centers and summer camps closed, at least temporarily have fallen more on their shoulders. It is possible that these effects vary across mothers and fathers and that the gender gap on this account may change as the coronavirus outbreak extends its run.

Here are five facts about how labor market activity among women and men with children at home has been affected in the first six months of the COVID-19 outbreak. The focus is on the shares of mothers and fathers who are working employed and at work in September 2020 and how that compares with where things stood in September 2019.

The shares of mothers and fathers who were employed and at work in September 2020 were smaller than in September 2019. Among mothers, this share decreased from 69.0% to 63.4% and, among fathers, it decreased from 90.5% to 85.6% over this period. The drop in the share of mothers working was about the same as the drop among fathers, 5.6 vs. 4.9 percentage points.

Mothers and fathers who are employed but not at work may be absent for a vacation, illness, maternity or paternity leave, child care, and other family obligations, among several reasons. Because vacations or sick leave may also be taken for family reasons, our analysis does not attempt to distinguish among the reasons for absence from work. In September 2020, the share of those absent from work was 2.9% among mothers and 2.1% among fathers. Mothers and fathers experienced the same increase in this share in comparison with September 2019.

The downturn did increase unemployment across the board. Among mothers, the share of the working-age population, ages 16 and older, that was not employed increased from 2.2% in September 2019 to 4.7% in September 2020. Fathers saw a similar rise in the share not employed, from 1.7% to 4.5%.

A key difference between mothers and fathers is in the share who are not in the labor force neither employed nor actively looking for work. Among mothers, 29.1% were not in the labor force in September 2020, compared with only 7.8% of fathers, a disparity driven in part by child care and other family obligations. This share was higher than in September 2019 among both mothers and fathers, with a slightly greater increase occurring among mothers than fathers (2.6 vs. 1.6 percentage points).

Among mothers, those with children ages 3 and older experienced a slightly greater decrease in the share employed and at work; among fathers, the decrease in this share was greater among those with children younger than 3. Reflecting the gender gap in childcare, mothers with children younger than 3 are less likely to be at work. In September 2020, 53.9% of these mothers were employed and at work, compared with 70.4% of mothers whose youngest child was 14 to 17 years old. These shares have dropped since September 2019 for all groups of mothers, with the decrease among mothers with children ages 3 to 5 or ages 6 to 13 (6.7 percentage points each) being greater than among other mothers.

Among fathers with children younger than 3, the share who were working fell from 91.9% in September 2019 to 85.0% in September 2020. The decrease in workplace activity was more modest among fathers with older children. For example, among fathers with children ages 14 to 17, the overall share who were at work fell from 87.5%% in September 2019 to 85.1% in September 2020.

Underlying these trends in the workplace engagement of mothers and fathers were changes in their labor force participation. Mothers with children ages 3 to 5 or ages 6 to 13 experienced more of a decrease in labor force participation, as did fathers with children younger than 3. Absences from work were largely unchanged among mothers and fathers regardless of the ages of their children.

Black, Asian and Hispanic mothers experienced a greater decrease in the shares who were at work in the COVID-19 downturn than White mothers. Among fathers, Black and Hispanic fathers saw a greater decrease in the share employed than White and Asian fathers.

In September 2019, 73.2% of Black mothers were at work, greater than the shares among White, Asian and Hispanic mothers. By September 2020, the share of Black mothers who were working stood at 65.8%, a drop of 7.4 percentage points. Asian and Hispanic mothers experienced drops of 7.3 and 8.0 points in the shares employed, respectively. The decreases in this share for White mothers 4.1 percentage points is also notable, but not as high, in keeping with the trends among women overall.

Black and Hispanic fathers saw a greater decrease in work activity than other fathers over the same period. In September 2019, 81.6% of Black fathers and 92.2% of Hispanic fathers were employed and at work. By September 2020, 75.3% of Black fathers and 85.0% of Hispanic fathers were at work. The decreases in the share working among White and Asian fathers were not as high.

Workplace engagement among Black, Asian and Hispanic mothers fell more than among White mothers because they left the labor force in greater proportions and they also experienced more of an increase in unemployment from September 2019 to September 2020. Similarly, Black and Hispanic fathers were more likely to have left the labor force than White and Asian fathers over this period, and unemployment increased more among Black, Asian and Hispanic fathers than among White fathers.

Fathers who are employed and at work cut back on the hours they spent on the job by a little more than mothers did. From September 2019 to September 2020, the average weekly hours worked by fathers fell from 43.3 to 40.5 nearly three hours per week. At the same time, mothers pared their average weekly hours from 36.8 to 35.0, close to two hours per week. The change in work hours among mothers and fathers did not vary notably by the ages of the youngest children at home.

The key difference among mothers and fathers is that mothers spend significantly less time on the job, and the gender gap on this front is largely intact. The demands of family life have a large impact on this disparity, as is partly evident in the fact that women with younger children work the least number of hours whereas the age of a child has no impact on the hours worked by fathers.

Another manifestation of the gender gap in work hours is that women are more likely than men to work part time. In September 2019, 21.0% of mothers worked part time compared with 3.9% of fathers. In September 2020, the shares working part time stood at 20.3% for mothers and 4.3% for fathers. The slight decrease in the share of mothers working part time is likely a consequence of the fact that employment fell more sharply among part-time workers than full-time workers in the COVID-19 downturn.

Because of the COVID-19 downturn, the share of men overall who are working is at a record low. Among women, the share who are working is the lowest since the mid-1980s, when labor force participation among women was much lower and still on the rise.

In September 2020, 49.2% of women ages 16 and older were employed and at work, down from 54.0% in September 2019. Among men, the share who are active decreased from 65.3% in September 2019 to 60.5% in September 2020, the lowest on record since 1976, when data first became available.

It is worth noting that mothers and fathers who are referenced in this analysis and with children younger than 18 at home are more likely to be working than women and men overall. One reason is that these parents are younger on average than women or men overall, among those 16 and older: The mean age of mothers in September 2020 was 39, compared with 48 for women overall. The mean age of fathers was 42 compared with 46 for men overall.

Our analysis of the labor market engagement of mothers and fathers finds that, in the first six months of the COVID-19 outbreak, the gender gap on this front is perhaps more reflective of long-standing patterns in the labor market than of a new dynamic brought on by the outbreak. As business closures peaked in April and May, researchers found that, among married parents with children younger than 13 at home, mothers reduced their time worked by about one hour more than fathers from February to April.

Another study estimated that employed mothers with school-age children were more likely to take leave from work if they lived in states that imposed closures earlier. But this study also observed that mothers in early closure states did not change their labor force participation differently than fathers. Meanwhile, a New York Times survey conducted in April found that both women and men were doing more housework and child care than usual, although the division was about the same as before COVID-19 emerged.

Looking forward, the impact of the COVID-19 downturn on working parents, especially mothers, may intensify if business and school closures remain in effect. In a survey conducted in July by the Federal Reserve Board, 23% of employed mothers and 15% of employed fathers said they expected to reduce their work hours if schools did not resume in-person classes in the fall. Another 4% of working mothers and 2% of working fathers said they might quit their jobs.

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Fewer mothers and fathers in U.S. are working due to COVID-19 downturn; those at work have cut hours - Pew Research Center